A Message to a Special Somebody
by a-word-nerd
Summary: The night before the Quarter Quell, Annie watches on TV as Finnick recites his poem to her during his interview with Caesar Flickerman.


AN: I'm back! So I've been taking a bunch of Odesta prompts on Tumblr, and I've decided to put them on here too. There are kind of a lot of them and I don't want to totally clog up FanFiction by posting them all at once, so I'm going to post one a day until they're all up. Enjoy! :)

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for being here tonight on the eve of the 75th Hunger Games!"

Caesar Flickerman looked just as phony and grotesque as he always had, Annie thought. His hair was purple this year. She didn't know what color it had been last year, and she really didn't care. She was fairly sure her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest. In a few minutes, in just a few short minutes, she would see Finnick again. She wasn't sure if she was elated or terrified.

"We have never seen anything like this! And we will never see anything like it again." Caesar's voice dripped with suspense.

_I'll say,_ Annie thought bitterly. The very idea of the Quarter Quell was absurd at best. Each and every victor who would take that stage tonight had previously been promised immunity from the Reaping for the rest of their lives. This was wrong.

The first two interviews passed mostly without incident. The brother and sister pair from District One put on the show that everyone wanted to see—the "everyone's brother and sister" act. The crowd loved it, but it made Annie feel sick. The tributes from District Two were nothing but ruthless. It made Annie nervous to think about Finnick being in the arena with them. Beetee and Wiress from Three didn't seem so bad. Beetee gave a voice to Annie's own thoughts about the Quell—"If the Quarter Quell were written into law by men, surely it can be unwritten."

Her heart broke into two when Mags took the stage. She wore a flowing blue dress and her hair was pulled away from her face with two shimmering clips that looked like seashells. She was beautiful. Annie still hadn't accepted that she would very likely never see her again.

Mags' interview was expectedly short, seeing as her ability to articulate sentences was limited due to her stroke. Caesar waited until she had hobbled up to take her spot on one of the pedestals next to Beetee before announcing the name of the next tribute. Annie knew who it was, and apparently, so did everyone else. Caesar's introduction was completely drowned out by the frenzied, high-pitched screams of the crowd.

And there he was. He looked the same—wild, curly blonde hair, bronze skin, and spellbinding sea green eyes. Annie didn't even notice what he was wearing, because what caught her attention was the thing that hung around his neck—it was the necklace that she had given him the night before the Reaping. Tears filled her eyes, but she held them back. She had to hear what he said. She had to hear his voice.

"Finnick," Caesar began as soon as he could make himself heard over the screams. "I understand that you have a message for somebody out there. A _special_ somebody." More cheers from the audience. Finnick smiled at Caesar, but Annie knew his face better than anyone. The smile was tight and forced. Caesar chuckled. "Can we hear it?"

Finnick swallowed hard and then began to speak into the microphone. "My love," he said. "You have my heart. For all eternity…" Here, he paused ever so slightly, and Annie knew he was fighting to keep his composure. "And if…if I die in that arena…" He looked straight into the camera, and Annie could see a tear glistening in one of his eyes. "My last thought will be of your lips."

Annie couldn't even try to keep it together anymore. She didn't even hear the rest of the interview; she turned the TV off once she realized that his was over. She took a pillow from the couch she was sitting on and buried her face in it, sobbing for all she was worth. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. He wasn't supposed to be there. None of them were. The whole thing was a sick and twisted excuse for entertainment.

After a minute of allowing herself to fall apart, Annie took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. Curling up in a ball and feeling sorry for herself wasn't going to get Finnick out of that arena. She knew him, and she knew that he would fight until his very last breath to come home. The very least she could do was to stay strong and be with him in spirit. He wasn't going to give up hope, and neither was she.


End file.
